escapade: n. a piece of daring or reckless behaviour. How many times have you been labelled as mad or reckless because you homeschool?
Well I say its time to break down those notions - Bring on the Madness !

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Wednesday, 30 October 2013

We have incorporated Classical Conversations into our lessons this year and so far the girls have really enjoyed it.Their favourite aspect of the memorisation work has been the songs - they have made up actions to a couple of the songs and wanted to share them.

Zeus - holding a lighting boltHera - hands fan out like a peacock tail (her sacred animal)Ares - fists fighting (god of war)Aphrodite - tapping heart (love)Artemis - shooting a bow and arrow (goddess of the hunt and maidens)Hermes - winged shoesThey also made up a second verse with actions to the Greek Roman Gods.

Monday, 21 October 2013

Our local Home Ed group recently ran a 'history of fashion day' where we explored fabric and fashions from history.We got to look at clothes from various ages and had a dress up table (this had to be their favourite activity)

Renisance reinactment costume, princess and Victorian maid

a dress from the 30's with a real fur collar

Grecian There was a world fashion table - full of clothes from different countries.

They made a fabric timeline where they got to look at when fabrics were invented

Friday, 18 October 2013

We've detoured slightly this week and looked at cells because the Linnaeus classification system works by looking at the differences on a cellular level.I wanted to really emphasise the difference between plant and animal cells so following our discussion about cells and cell organelles (the parts of a cell and their jobs - I found a great free printable here) I decided to get them to build models.

They started with the animal cell - here I cut a round shape out of a plastic bag for the cell membrane and got them to make the different organelles.

Next they did the plant cell - I found a clear plastic box for the cell wall and used a plastic bag inside for the cell membrane and again asked them to make the organelles.

This seemed to work well to cement the fact that plant cells have a cell wall. They also remembered the extra organelles that a plant cell has but their favourite had to be the fluffy green chloroplasts : )

Thursday, 10 October 2013

YWAM are one of the largest Christian charitable organisations in the world . YWAM Publishing are a division of this charity and offer a large selection of books and music. In case you are wondering YWAM stands for 'Youth With A Mission'.

We chose the book 'George Washington - True Patriot' part of their Hero's of History collection, this is a series of biographies that bring history to life - sharing stories of the people who changed the course of history.

I chose to print and bind the book (all 224 pages!) so that the girls could use it easily. I decided against the ebook as the girls prefer paper books.

I also printed out the study guide - this comes in two parts, there is a four page download with a fact sheet, outline maps and a time line, and 64 page unit study guide jam packed full of activities. These include:

Chapter questions - these work well for testing retention and getting them to narrate back what they have read. These also include vocabulary.

Quotes for copy work and/or memorisation.

Social Studies - ideas and activities covering places, vocab, geography, mapping, time line and conceptual questions

Display ideas - these weren't suitable for us but would be great for a bigger group setting.

Student Explorations - this included the creative writing exercises as well as hands on projects and was the girls favourite section.

Community Links - field trips and guest speaker ideas.

Related themes to explore including some math, history, politics, law and some science.

Culminating Event - lists a number of fun activities for when you have finished the study.

Appendix - this lists a whole host of additional books and other resources. It also contains suggested answers to the chapter questions.

This guide is designed to bring the book to life and is defiantly value for money and is one of the more complete unit studies I've seen.

Lilly and Sunflower are 11 and almost 9 and we haven't had any issues with comprehending the book although there is the odd word they had to look up. They love living history books so have really lapped up the stories of his life as a young boy and the life he led before he became famous.

The girls didn't enjoy the unit study as much as I did but they did enjoy the creative writing (especially creating the poem) and making beeswax candles. I really like the chapter questions - I have always loved using narration as part of our learning so this section was right up my street, the added bonus is it comes with the answers.I think their favourite activity had to be the Manners Tea Party as the culminating event : )

George Washington a True Patriot is available for $6.99, the Unit Study Guide is $7.49 and is aimed at age 10+

You can see what my crew mates thought of this and their Christian Heroes series over at the TOS Blog

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

A couple of weeks ago we attended a woodcarving session. I will admit that prior to attending I was a tad nervous about it (Young kids and sharp knives are not a good combination) but hats off to the chap who ran it because it was a great success.The session started with some safety rules (carve with the knife facing away from you, carve to the side of your legs not in between them etc.)

Then he took groups of seven and taught them some basic carving techniques while they made their own little gnomes.

I think the youngest carver was a five year old and everyone enjoyed a fun (and safe) day : )